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My children are grown now so we missed the Elf on a Shelf extravaganza. And, no I am not sorry. Not that we didn’t have our own, certainly less KGB, elf tradition. It began with my father. But really, it began with his five sisters and three brothers on a tobacco farm in 1930s North Carolina. There wasn’t a lot of money in this big family but there was a lot of love. The older children looked out for the younger right down to making sure the magic and mystery of Christmas, elves and all, was never forgotten. They are all gone now; my father was the last. But, they left me with a lasting love of the season and an unshakeable belief in the power of family love.

I went to New York City last weekend. I find it an exhausting proposition but I had two very good reasons to visit. More on that in a minute, first a bit of history. I was born in Manhattan and lived in the same zip code for years after college: first in a grand old apartment building on Central Park and next in a brownstone with my future husband just blocks away from that childhood home.